Joanes Leizarraga

Leizarraga was born in the Northern Basque Country in the province of Labourd in a village called Briscous in 1506.

Nonetheless, Leizarraga was even in his time renowned as a great scholar of the Basque language, the very reason he would later be entrusted with the translation of the New Testament.

In March 1563 Leizarraga was instructed by Jeanne d'Albret, the Queen of Navarre at the Synod of Béarn to produce a Basque translation of the New Testament.

Having negotiated the tricky issue of translating into a language which by then had no great written tradition, common standard or spelling system, he persevered with some help from four old Catholic colleagues: Piarres Landetxeberri from Espès-Undurein, Sanz de Tartas from Charritte-de-Bas (both in Soule), Joanes Etxeberri from Saint-Jean-de-Luz and a Mr Tardets who was a minister in Ostabat.

Finally, in 1571, the printer Pierre Haultin based in La Rochelle printed three works by Leizarraga, amongst them is translation of the New Testament.

It is indicative of the respect he commanded that in 1582 he was visited by Jacques Auguste de Thou, the man who would later negotiate the Edict of Nantes on religious tolerance.

It is also Thou who mentions the exceptionally harmonious relationship between Protestants and Catholics in Bastide where according to him both faiths were worshipped in the church, something that was rare in 16th century France which is known for its religious wars.